Analysing job creation effects of scaling up infrastructure spending in South Africa

In a first for South Africa, this article draws on literature on infrastructure productivity to model dynamic economy-wide employment impacts of infrastructure investment funded with different fiscal tools. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, the South African investment plan is modelled, given the infrastructure externality. Alternative fiscal scenarios to finance the policy are modelled in the article. In the long run, unemployment decreases for all types of workers under one of the scenarios. In the short run, only elementary occupation workers benefit from a decrease in unemployment; for the rest, unemployment rises.     

Determinants of discretionary fiscal policy in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper explores economic, political and institutional determinants of discretionary fiscal policy in 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries from 2000 to 2013 and compares discretionary fiscal reactions before and during the global economic crisis. We find that fiscal policy was procyclical to the output gap both before and during the crisis, while no fiscal reaction to the absorption gap was captured. Our results also indicate a negative relationship between the level of public debt and deficits over the entire period and the pre-crisis period, suggesting that rising public debt represented a brake on future deficits. We also find that election cycles affect the fiscal deficit, but only during the pre-crisis period, while no evidence of a relationship between fiscal policy and government fragmentation was captured. We find some evidence that in the pre-crisis period the CEE countries with a fixed exchange rate regime ran lower deficits than those with a floating regime, whereas during the crisis no impact of the exchange rate regime on the fiscal deficit was found. There is also some evidence that an arrangement with the IMF was associated with lower deficits for the entire sample period. However, no impact of EU accession on the fiscal stance was identified.     

Multi-sectoral interdependencies of regional public infrastructure investments

Public investment decision-making processes involve multiple and interrelated sectoral and regional policy objectives and budget constraints. This paper presents a dynamic spatio-economic model that considers multi-sectoral investment interdependencies using data at the prefecture level in Greece. The expenditure allocation dynamics of most types of regional public investment are found to be competitive with each other. This outcome is attributed to the lack of policy coordination, technological and budget constraints, geographical factors, and equity and political considerations. The investment interrelationships may have a significant effect on future state funding needs and the strategic assessment of infrastructure development at the country level.     

Soft drink prices,sales, body mass index and diabetes: Evidence from a panel of low-, middle- and high-income countries

We take advantage of four different cross-country datasets containing data on 78 countries for the period 1999–2014, in order to assess the relationship of carbonated soft drinks’ sales, as well as their prices, with body mass index (BMI), overweight, obesity and diabetes. Using an ecological study design and multivariate regression longitudinal estimation approaches, we find that carbonated soft drink sales were significantly positively related to BMI, overweight and obesity – but only in the low and lower-middle income countries. This finding was robust to a number of sensitivity and falsification checks. In this sub-sample, an increase in per capita soft drink sales by 1 litre per year was related to an increase of BMI by about 0.009 kg/m² (p < 0.1).. This is a small effect, implying that halving annual consumption per capita in this group of countries would result in a drop of BMI by only about 0.03 kg/m². Although soft drink prices were negatively related to weight-related outcomes in the sample of higher middle income and high income countries, this finding was not robust to falsification checks. The results thus suggest that sales restrictions to steer consumers away from soft drinks could indeed have a beneficial health effects in poorer countries, although the effect magnitude appears to be very small. However, given potential limitations of using ecological research design, results from individual level studies would be required to further ascertain the role of soft drink sales and prices in obesity and diabetes.     

浅谈独立学院贫困生资助管理工作的几点思考——以江苏科技大学苏州理工学院为例

当前高校贫困生人数和比例呈上升趋势,高校贫困生资助管理工作应与时俱进,应把高校贫困生帮扶与教育相结合,把物质救助手段与精神鼓励手段结合起来,全面、系统的做好高校贫困生的资助管理工作。     

Cyclical fiscal policy,credit constraints,and industry growth

What are the effects of cyclical fiscal policy on industry growth? We show that industries with a relatively heavier reliance on external finance or lower asset tangibility tend to grow faster (in terms of both value added and of labor productivity growth) in countries that implement fiscal policies that are more countercyclical. We reach this conclusion using Rajan and Zingales׳s (1998) difference-in-difference methodology on a panel data sample of manufacturing industries across 15 OECD countries over the period 1980–2005.     

Asymmetric effects of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries

In this article, we take account of an evaluation of the short- and medium-term effects of the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries and their dependence on the state of the economy and fiscal behaviour. Our findings indicate that (i) across EU member states the impact of government spending on economic performance is larger in the accession than in core member states, (ii) since the onset of the economic/financial crisis the government spending multipliers have become larger in both core and accession EU member states, and (iii) a comparison with fiscal responses in the OECD countries shows robustness of our estimates. The conclusion implies that the austerity measures present a substantial drag for economic activity in accession EU countries. Thus, we may state that not considering the fiscal behaviour and state of the economy gives misleading fiscal multiplier effects, which in turn lead to the adoption of inappropriate fiscal measures that even worsen a country's economic situation.     

财政支出差异性对创业活动的激励效应分析

经济新常态下，创业是推动中国经济发展、改善民生的重要途径。创业过程的风险性、不确定性及正外部性需要政府给予积极支持。基于2007-2015年中国内地30个省市（除西藏外）数据，运用动态面板模型，考察地区财政支出和创业活动的关系。研究结果表明：财政支出规模对创业活动数量及创业活动质量具有滞后的积极作用；财政支出规模的滞后效应源于财政支出结构的滞后效应，不同财政支出结构对创业活动质量影响的差异较大；同时，创新是提升创业活动质量的重要手段。因此，政府应积极支持“大众创业、万众创新”，各地区财政创业扶持资金应该从规模和结构上进行调整，重点优化有利于创新的支出结构，为创业提供良好的公共环境。     

Determinants of Inflow to Mutual Funds: Criterion and Methodology for Their Application to the Mainland China Market

This study is based on the Froot, O’Connell, and Seasholes [2001] and Hsieh, Yang and Yu [2008] as foundations to study which reasons and control factors cause herding behavior of mutual fund inflows. The study uses the most popular Asian emerging market, China, as the sample to determine the real attractive reason behind the mutual fund inflows to China. The significant determinant of the mutual fund inflows to China is stock returns for both Shanghai and Shenzhen A stock markets.     

Macroeconomic impacts of fiscal policy shocks in the UK: A DSGE analysis

This paper develops and estimates a new-Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for the analysis of fiscal policy in the UK. We find that government consumption and investment yield the highest GDP multipliers in the short-run, whereas capital income tax and public investment have dominating effect on GDP in the long-run. When nominal interest rate is at the zero lower bound, consumption taxes and public consumption and investment are found to be the most effective fiscal instruments throughout the analysed horizon, and capital and labour income taxes are established to be the least effective. The paper also shows that the effectiveness of fiscal policy decreases in a small open-economy scenario and that nominal rigidities improve effectiveness of public spending and consumption taxes, whereas decrease that of income taxes.